


Light One Candle

by thundercracker



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Chanukah, Humanformers, M/M, Noncanon Pronouns, Trans Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 10:34:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13098276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thundercracker/pseuds/thundercracker
Summary: It's weird for Starscream to actually care what someone thinks unless it's part of a plan. It's weirder that his apartment-mates keep insisting he has a crush. But maybe the weirdest thing is that Cyclonus is actually capable of coordinating a decent Chanukah party.No, the weirdest part is definitely the crush.





	Light One Candle

**Author's Note:**

> As far as I can tell there are literally no Transformers fanfics about (C)han(n)uk(k)ah and I needed to fix that. It's a bit late for Chanukah 2017 but I was able to overcome months of writer's block and depression to write this self-indulgent thing and that's what matters.

Of all the things Thundercracker expected to hear from his apartment-mate, “Cyclonus is hosting a party” was not one of them.

 “Sorry,” the older man said, setting the wooden spoon he was wielding into a simmering pot of sauce, “isn’t that the cantor who taught your Jewish history class?” It certainly didn’t seem in character for any of the professors Starscream had ever complained about (which formed a completely overlapping Venn diagram with the circle of professors Starscream who had taught Starscream).

Starscream had only just returned from the university campus—a half hour earlier and in a much fairer mood than usual, almost definitely meaning that his chemistry lab partner had driven him home. The afternoon buses were crowded and loud, and at this time of day so full that buses would drive past bus stops entirely, invariably prompting him to complain about Thundercracker not driving to campus to pick him up. Nevermind that Thundercracker needed the car to get to his own community college campus and to pick up Skywarp from their irregular shifts at work, or that he was the only one who drove, or that he could barely afford gas anyway.

“The very same,” Starscream replied neutrally before tossing his bag onto the couch and meandering into the kitchen; Thundercracker frowned at him as he stuck his finger into the sauce and tasted it. “Pumpkin again, really? It’s mid-December, pumpkin season should have ended weeks ago.”

“Don’t blame me,” Thundercracker grumbled, “Skywarp wanted each of us to have our own pie for Thanksgiving, so they bought nine cans of it.”

Starscream raised an eyebrow at that; “Do pies usually take three cans of—”

“ _No_ ,” Thundercracker groaned. The sauce burbled unpleasantly.

“At least try to get the seasonings right this time. Last time it just tasted like cinnamon.”

The older man only leered in response. “ _Anyway_. Party? With the lecturer who you described as the driest teacher you’ve seen since 7 th grade math?”

“Obviously it was her wife’s idea, not hers. They’re co—”

“Wife?”

“Oh, I haven’t mentioned Tailgate before,” Starscream hummed. “A former student of hers. Long story involving a coma inspiring her to ‘ _do more with her life_ ’ and finally get a degree in her, oh, sixties? She comes to shul to listen to her wife sing and tell everyone who’ll listen about how they started dating when she graduated.”

Thundercracker nodded; he was fairly certain this was the most neutral description Starscream had ever given of anyone from his university social circles, but it was also very clearly abridged for brevity’s sake. No doubt Starscream had much more to say about her if given the time, considering how often he apparently saw her.

“So Cyclonus got talked into basically coordinating the Hanukkah party up at the Cultural Center on Tuesday. Officially it’s a collaboration between the Chabad House and Hillel.”

“Huh. Are you going?”

Starscream sighed dramatically and grabbed the jar of nutmeg, snapping open the lid. “I _suppose_ so. I have two finals the day after, but if I can’t draw twenty molecules from memory by the day before, what hope does anyone have for passing o-chem?”

“We all believe in you, mister honor roll,” Thundercracker replied with a grin, using his shoulders to block the other and his nutmeg (by then looming threateningly over the pot) from their dinner. “Soundwave’ll probably be there too with the family—say hi for me?”

“Yes, and I’ll be sure to tell them you love them and think it’s adorable how much they care for their family,” Starscream drawled, disregarding his apartment-mate’s intensifying glare, “and how you think the way they summarized _Freedom is a Constant Struggle_ was very sexy.”

“ _Or_ I could take the night off work and come too!” Thundercracker huffed. “Will your chemistry partner be there? Jetfire? I would love to meet him; I’m sure he’d love to hear about the fire you set in middle school shop class and how _you_ thought his argument about bioethics was, and I quote, 'very compelling'. And then Soundwave won’t have to listen to you lie about my _admiration of them_ as a well-read peer!”

“Ugh. His name is Skyfire, first of all. But fine, I’ll tell Soundwave you _very much_ appreciated them lending you their books and _happy Chanukah_ to their collection of teenage dependents.”

“ _Thank_ you. Now grab the colander for the penne, the sauce should be done.”

Purely out of spite, the university student deftly dumped a tablespoon of nutmeg into the pot.

“It _still_ tastes like cinnamon,” he said with a scowl, “and your pumpkin privileges are revoked until next October, you fucking cretin.”

* * *

 

The Chanukah party was actually a mild affair. Despite the Cultural Center, Chabad House _and_ Hillel advertising it on their respective sites, only twenty-some students came because of them; around twenty more had been drawn in by the large menorah outside and the promise of free latkes and cider. It was finals week, after all. Even the twenty students had been a decent turnout compared to last year.

The fact that the Cultural Center was filled with Chanukah-themed covers of pop songs was testament to the fact that Cyclonus’s wife had evidently helped with the _party_ elements of the party, while Cyclonus seemed mainly responsible for projecting the blessings onto the side of the building during the candle lighting, which she led with the strong and practiced voice of a cantor. Starscream refused to think it was cute how Tailgate looked at her wife like she was an angel. 

(It was very sweet, admittedly.)

Many of the attendants Starscream recognized from his days of high school rivalry. Because of the nature of the university town, most students who graduated from the two primary school systems went to the local university or community college. The two competed in sports, chess, academics, but primarily college acceptance rates; it had started when the university had limited local enrollment, and that policy fortunately ended the year of Starscream’s college applications. He and his apartment-mates had graduated from the larger but more underfunded high school, while many others at the university hailed from the other, which had more personal ties to the university’s alumni and faculty. It led to an unfortunate amount of division in the freshmen class, but by the second year most students bonded together in mutual hatred of the university system: the increasing fees, the lack of sensitivity from the chancellors, the frequent erasure of trans and disabled students… _you know,_ Thundercracker had once said, _the usual college things_.

He had also said that the university was divided into themed colleges spread around the campus to prevent a centralized student uprising, and no one was quite sure how serious he had been. Skywarp was convinced he spent too much time listening to Soundwave.

The party had younger guests and their guardians as well, as the town had no other public lighting; Starscream recognized a young Sephardic child—what was he, eight? he really was terrible at guessing kids’ ages—that he knew to be Bumblebee’s little protégé from the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. Raf, he remembered, solely because Skywarp had once referred to him as “the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle kid with the hair.” There was a girl and her father who—to Starscream’s irritation—had shared his idea to bring pakoras and, even worse, had a far superior recipe. And, of course, there were Soundwave’s little hellions, a couple of high school miscreants that they had inexplicably taken in. Fortunately they were preoccupied asking Kup, the oldest Chabad member, about his recipe for bimuelos, and with any luck Starscream could avoid them.

“Thundercracker told me to thank you again for the books,” said the student without preamble. “And he says hi.” After a pause, he added, “Oh, don’t take it personally if he doesn’t come to your reading circles lately. Last time he was so frustrated over not understanding _The Conquest of Bread_ that he faked the flu and actually got sick from anxiety. Embarrassing, really.”

Soundwave nodded at that and flashed a sign that Starscream remembered Skywarp once interpreting as “it’s all cool.” 

With Soundwave apparently nonverbal that night and Starscream having no interest in Rumble interpreting for them, that seemed to be the end of that conversation.

In part because he wasn’t close with the attendees and in part because he disliked small talk, Starscream was eventually left with two options: leave, or talk to his chemistry partner, who evidently was both Jewish and chatting with Tailgate by the latke table.

It wasn't that he had a crush on him; he hadn't had a  _crush_ in ages. But Skyfire was tall and handsome and patient and the only lab partner who hadn't gotten into a spat with Starscream over his perfectionism. Miraculously, Starscream was comfortable enough around him to go off on his rants, and his partner not only listened but tried to engage, often asking for clarification or even poking holes into his ideology with arguments that he would never have considered. He was a good chemist and a good conversationalist and, as much as Starscream wished to deny it, he _interested_ him. He had known Skyfire before high school, but the latter had transferred to the rival school in 10th grade and Starscream had since nearly forgotten him until they had enrolled in the same lab section.

Against his better judgement, he decided to talk to Skyfire.

“—and she said that it would be inappropriate for a professor to date a student and I was just _heartbroken_!” Starscream heard the older woman say emphatically. “But that was my last quarter, I only was taking her class for the Cross Cultural requirement, so when I graduated… oh, hi Starscream!”

Skyfire flashed a warm smile and waved.

“Don’t let me interrupt,” Starscream said, wishing very much to do so.

“Right!” chirped the woman. “After I left the stage at graduation, Cyclonus found me in the crowd and said—” (here she deepened her voice and sounded nothing like her wife) “—‘congratulations on your commencement, Tailgate. I believe you once mentioned a café—I would love to take you up on your offer, if it still stands.’”

“That’s sweet,” commented Skyfire, who very nearly had said “that’s gay” instead.

“Sickeningly,” Starscream added under his breath.

“She’s really wonderful,” Tailgate replied. “I’m going to go check up on some other students, but nice meeting you, Skyfire! Come to Hillel sometime and say hi!”

“Will do!” Skyfire said, and turned to his classmate. He loomed over Starscream; he was tall and broad-shouldered and everything Thundercracker wished he looked like aside from the soft, gentle face. (Starscream made himself promise he would never again think of his face as _soft_ or _gentle_ or _cute_ , a promise he would immediately break.)

“You’re Jewish,” the shorter student stated. He promptly felt very foolish, which was both an unfamiliar and unwelcome sensation.

To his credit, Skyfire laughed. “Yeah, you too, though I kind of figured from the necklaces.” He gestured at the Magen David pendant Starscream wore, one of many in his collection. He planned to wear at least three of them on the 25th. “I never see you at Chabad.”

“Hillel is superior, obviously,” Starscream said, a bit defensively. But he was trying out the idea of being nice, and as much as he hated to admit it, he actually did care about Skyfire’s feelings, so he elaborated, “It doesn’t have a mechitzah.”

“Oh,” replied the other, feeling stupid and only marginally less awkward. Of course he knew that trans students and their friends tended to avoid Chabad; a barrier separating the genders never went over well with nonbinary attendees. And of course it would matter to Starscream—he had spent most of last week’s lab listing off criticisms of biological essentialism while pipetting hydrochloric acid, he certainly was the type to care. “Yeah. Chabad’s just closer to my place, maybe I’ll try out Hillel next quarter. Speaking of, I live on Myrtle, you know, by Chestnut Street?”

The slighter man’s mind jumped into to a mild panic and chose that as the perfect time to remind him that Skyfire and his face _were_ , in fact, soft and gentle and cute, and not only did he tolerate Starscream as a lab partner but also engage him in interesting and intelligent conversation outside of class.

Starscream thought he was carrying himself _quite_ well despite being a gay mess, but if he was being invited over, he may just collapse on the spot and blame the lunch Thundercracker had packed for him.

“I have an extra hanukkiah at home since I got a new one this year,” Skyfire continued, oblivious to Starscream’s heightening pulse rate and newfound desire to disappear on the spot. “I've been asking around, do you need one?”

The other replied instantly—and it wasn’t even technically a lie, as he currently shared his with Thundercracker. “Yes.”

“I can take you there now? I’m leaving soon anyway. Maybe we can study a bit together?”

“Of course,” replied Starscream mildly with admirable composure, heart hammering away. “I’d need to grab a notebook from my house—on Laurel, not far from yours. That wouldn’t _inconvenience_ you, would it?”

“Oh, no, not at all!”

“Well then, shall we?” Starscream gestured toward the door with a flourish. Skyfire chuckled. His laugh was impossibly charming, the former mentally conceded.

The night was cold when they stepped out of the Cultural Center, a few friends wishing them a happy Chanukah as they left side by side. With a few deep breaths—the breeze smelled of pine—Starscream’s anxiety began to subside.

On the way to the parking lot, they idly chatted about their lives, and Starscream found that he didn’t mind the small talk at all. They spoke of why Skyfire had been bounced between the two school districts (“custody disputes and that time in 10th grade when they changed the district zoning”), how Starscream was taking minoring in politics (“a backup plan, but the buffoons in office now may just drive me to it—so we can have at least one politician who knows how science works”), and how they felt about their impending final (“I’m probably fine” and “After a bit more studying I’ll singlehandedly wreck the curve”).

The two were so caught up in conversation it was only when the car started pulling up on Laurel Street and Starscream saw the silhouettes of Thundercracker—recently home from his lab tech job—and Skywarp—apparently not scheduled until the midnight shift that night—that he realized he hadn’t warned them. With an apology to Skyfire for the delay, he quickly messaged the apartment group chat.

> **★STAR★** **7:33 pm:**  I have a friend with me, so put some shirts on and be on your best behavior. We’re outside.
> 
> **we don't deserve dogs 7:34 pm:**  That’s BS both your friends are in this room
> 
> **piss 7:34 pm:**  what kind of crush do u have who has beef w a coupla dudes chilling tiddy out
> 
> **★STAR★**   **7:35 pm:** I am not going to ask my CLASSMATE I BARELY KNOW if he’s alright with nudity. It will take 2 minutes. Just go in your bedroom then.
> 
> **we don't deserve dogs 7:35 pm:** Can I stay though. You know I got my tiddies cut off last year. I can be the litmus test for if he’s a huge transphobe ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> **★STAR★** **7:35 pm:** Please let neither of you be shirtless in the living room when I come in.
> 
> **piss 7:36 pm:**  lol ok look at u actually caring abt what he thinks of u……..gay
> 
> **★STAR★**   **7:36 pm:** Fuck you.
> 
> **piss 7:37 pm:**  only tc can do that sry
> 
> **piss 7:38 pm:**  haha lmao he made me delete that txt his face is like burning up
> 
> **we don't deserve dogs 7:39 pm:** Please delete that we’ll be good for your ‘friend’ I swear :-/

With a sigh, Starscream placed the phone in his pocket. “Sorry about that,” he said, genuinely meaning it. “My apartment-mates are a couple of children.”

“No problem,” laughed Skyfire, “you looked so concerned. Everything alright?”

“Generally speaking. You can come in if you’d like.” Now that he’d told the others, at least. He stepped out of the car; Skyfire followed his lead as he headed towards the front door.

“Sure. I can meet the roommates?”

“Apartment-mates,” Starscream corrected. The door was unlocked (it always was when one of them was home), so he held it open for the other and stepped in after him. To his misfortune, the two chucklefucks in question were still on the couch, Thundercracker having pulled on a sweatshirt and Skywarp (presumably still shirtless) wrapped in a blanket. “Speaking of. Thundercracker’s the older one who looks like a pretentious twenty three year old lit major because he was one before he switched to vet school.”

“I can’t argue with that but also fuck you,” Thundercracker said with a nod.

“The one who consistently smells like Pine-Sol and obviously was a jock in high school is Skywarp.”

“I was  _joth_ ,” corrected Skywarp. “There’s a difference.”

“I’m just going to grab my notes from my room. Don’t be weird,” Starscream warned, and headed off to the small single bedroom.

To his relief, Thundercracker had taken the conversational lead, and by the time he had located all his materials and returned to the living room, was extensively detailing how much he loved the dog at the shelter and how she had convinced him to switch majors last year and how he was going to adopt her the minute they moved somewhere that allowed pets.

“Letting anyone meet you two is a mistake,” the chem major said anyway and ushered his lab partner back to the car. The couchbound duo wished them happy Chanukah and told them to grab some of Thundercracker’s sufganiyot on their way out, which they happily did.

“They’re… interesting,” Skyfire said in the car after swallowing a mouthful of doughnut, but his smile was so genuine that Starscream actually believed it was supposed to be a compliment.

“They’re morons,” the other huffed.

“But you like them?”

Starscream considered the man in the driver’s seat.

He considered lying, and he considered how much he had enjoyed himself tonight and in all the labs leading up to tonight.

And he considered that he really wouldn’t mind if moments like those would never stop happening.

“Yes, well,” he said slowly, deliberating on each word, “you know how family can be.”

Skyfire smiled at him and nodded.

He had a face that was soft and gentle and cute, and made Starscream flush with the warmth of a sunbeam despite the night air, and among the background noise of the cars in the street the two could hear the deep timbre of Thundercracker’s voice, muted by the windows, singing proudly, “— _asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav…_ ”

A candle lit up the night.

And as the melody subsided and Skyfire started up the car’s engine, Starscream felt at home.

**Author's Note:**

> A lot was cut out because this is late as is but :x
> 
> Also the message was supposed to look like [this](https://imgur.com/uBp3dia) but Ao3 couldn't handle emojis


End file.
